THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

also show specific preferences that can keep them apart. The laws of nature dictate that this has to be
the case.
We are talking here of two very similar related fish species hunting and feeding in a seemingly identical
manner, and evolution simply doesn't allow for that.
Ultimately, for whatever small reason, one species will prove more competitive than the other and
displace it, which means that we either loose the evicted species altogether, or it adapts to exploit a
slightly different niche not already completely occupied by something else and survives, and it would
appear that this is what has happened here.
Preferred water depth and latitude is what generally separates these two species, with some small degree
of overlap, allowing both to prosper, with a few adaptive physical changes or differences along the way.
By and large then, mature coalfish are an offshore deep water species. Catching small specimens inshore
and from the shore is one thing. Finding the bigger fish from the shore is quite another matter. But it is
occasionally done, the best of which I've managed to track down weighing in at just ounces under twenty
five pounds from Filey Brigg in Yorkshire, which I'll wager was a bit of a shock to its captor. A bit of
a handful too.
Back at the start of my fishing, a coalfish of that size would even have beaten the boat record. That now
stands at 37½ pounds out from Plymouth over one of the mid channel wrecks.
I noticed too that the Scottish shore record was taken from Loch Long on the Clyde, reminding me of
how good the Gantocks and some of the adjacent marks could be back in the 1970's for monster coalfish
as 'by-catch' mixed in amongst the cod from the deep water on the pirks.
Now unfortunately all of that is long gone leaving the Clyde a virtual barren wilderness.
Associated audio interview numbers: 72.
HADDOCK Melanogrammus aeglefinus
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112
Very obviously a cod family
member with its shape and body
layout. A fish with three dorsal
fins and two anal fins, plus a tiny
chin barbel from what is a very
noticeably shortened lower jaw.
Using the cod for direct
comparison, the haddock's first
dorsal fin is quite tall, the first few
rays of which are elongated giving
it a noticeably pointed look.
There are other pertinent points,
but these tend to be academic
considering the haddock's quite
unmistakable markings. On each
Haddock markings
flank above the pectoral fin is a
brown blotch similar to that
found on the John Dory, which again is said to be the apostle's thumb print.